Next time a once-stable, reasonably valuable and perhaps even historic building in Albany is allowed to decay so irreparably that demolition is the best option, you might wonder what would have come of it if the county had a land bank in place.

You might wish there could be a better fate for the hundreds of dilapidated properties in Albany and surrounding cities. And there would be, if not for the County Legislature's lack of foresight to apply to the state for permission to set up an entity that would make it so much easier to buy, fix and resell foreclosed buildings that had fallen into disrepair.

County Executive Dan McCoy called a land bank the best way "to transform urban blight into a source of economic development."

No matter. The proposal by County Legislator Chris Higgins of Albany's Center Square neighborhood went down in defeat, 21-17.

He was determined to have the county take a more creative approach to what he very astutely calls "public enemy No. 1 in the city of Albany — urban decay and blight, along with absentee landlords."

Instead, the county is stuck, for now, with a status quo that leaves it little more than the disinterested owner of neglected, tax-delinquent property as it further deteriorates.

For that, thank the opposition in a sharp-elbowed political arena led by Frank Commisso, also of Albany, the County Legislature's majority leader. Mr. Commisso prevailed in killing an otherwise viable idea last week with arguments that weren't all that convincing.

He minimizes, for instance, the number of buildings the county might be able to rehabilitate. It's true, as he says, that there are only about 70 properties that the county now owns through foreclosure. But there are hundreds more that it might have been able to buy, at very low prices, while it's easier to salvage them.

A county land bank would have been able to take advantage of state funds — which Mr. Higgins expects to be in Governor Cuomo's state budget proposal this week — to acquire deteriorating buildings before they fall into foreclosure.

Yet Mr. Commisso has declared state-approved land banks to be a failure already, less than two years after legislation authorizing them was approved. He insists, without much evidence or elaboration, that a land bank would costs millions of dollars and leave the county on the hook for money the state wouldn't provide.

Interestingly, Mr. Commisso and a majority of the Legislature insist that the better way to contend with neglected and abandoned buildings is with the help of a so-far unnamed private investor and the resurrection of a county affordable housing trust that has been drained of any money. It's a vague idea that has Mr. Commisso promising to provide the necessary details very soon.

We're skeptical. But we'll take a look — and, we hope, before the next building comes crumbling down before it could be saved.